My plunging motivation to write mirrors my confidence that the words I write convey enough meaning to warrant spending the energy required to type them. A favorite French phrase—Le jeu n’en vaut pas la chandelle—explains it better than my English words can. “The game is not worth the candle.” Neither the original phrase nor the English translation, though, is sufficient without comment. Without a lengthy explanation of the origin of the French phrase, its meaning easily can be lost. So it is with the reasons for my flagging motivation and the role of my confidence in causing the decline. When “to break rocks” is offered as the motivation “to break rocks,” breaking rocks takes on a level of meaning and motivation that extracts all relevance from the practice. Why do I write? To write. Only to write.
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The older I get, the more I appreciate abstraction. That is not to say I understand abstraction; only that I tend to find abstract ideas more appealing. Abstraction once seemed chaotic to me—concepts sometimes lacking rational connections with the real world. Even then, though, something about abstraction held me transfixed, as if its turmoil represented ultimate rationality…albeit rationality far beyond my capacity to comprehend. Chaos is not disorder. It is, instead, a state of unison in which close relationships can be revealed between utterly dissimilar ideas or visions. For example, abstract art can expose viewers to images that show an artist’s perspective of the connection between diamonds and oxygen or nomadic tribes and monuments to architecture. Those revelations, though, are not necessarily straightforward. They can be hidden beneath layer upon layer of complexity. I think of physics as an abstract system of linking facts with fantasies or observations with beliefs. But, when I focus attention on those ideas, they become clouds of abrasive wind-blown dust that erase what I thought I understood. No matter how I look at what I wrote just now, I cannot make it make sense to me. On the other hand, its clarity is almost blinding.
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Well over an hour after I made my morning cup of espresso, I got up to quiet the howling cat. The cat suddenly stopped its disturbing shrieks the moment I stood up. When I stood up, I noticed the untouched cup of espresso; to free my hands to allow me to open my study door, I had left it on top of a cabinet nearby. I drank it, despite its unpleasant cool bitterness as it slid down my throat. Mentally, I feel like I am paralyzed. I have all manner of things to do this morning, but no interest in doing them and I lack the ability to shame myself into taking action. I want nothing more right now than to sleep. But in just over an hour, I must go in for my oncological punishment, so sleep is inadvisable—I should shower before I go. Perhaps I’ll take interim steps, instead. Deodorant. Fresh clothes. That sort of thing.
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Enough of this. Again. I have nothing sunny and bright to say.
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